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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653835">Shouldn't We Be Practicing?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueberryLemonade20/pseuds/BlueberryLemonade20'>BlueberryLemonade20</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>K-On!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:14:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,378</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueberryLemonade20/pseuds/BlueberryLemonade20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With two of their members absent, the Light Music Club holds an everyday meeting without them. Azusa rarely gets to hang out with just Yui and Mugi...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shouldn't We Be Practicing?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This little story is meant to take place at some point in the first half of season 2 of K-ON! Or in other words, the first half of Yui's senior year.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finally, the school day’s over.</p><p>Not that class was particularly hard for Azusa, but she couldn’t help but zone out during lecture. She kept fidgeting, itching to be be anywhere else and play guitar.</p><p>Now, classes were over and there was nothing standing between her and heading straight to the Light Music Club.</p><p>As she climbed the stairs, the same stairwell she’s climbed nearly every day for more than a year now, she barely noticed her pace quicken. Her routine, dutiful walk had become a jog, and then a scramble. Azusa caught herself before reaching the door, slowing her steps and trying to shake out all the energy. It seemed kind of childish to be excitedly running in the halls.</p><p>She didn’t dare let anyone see her momentary lack of self-control, so she took a slow, deep breath before entering. She turned the doorknob gently, trying to take a super-mundane-and-not-excited-at-all step into the clubroom.</p><p>“Azu-nyan!”</p><p>Before her eyes could even adjust to the sun coming through the window, she was greeted with a shout. Did her hair blow back from the sound? Probably not, but it felt like it.</p><p>“Wh-why are you yelling, Yui-senpai? Can you please tone it down?” Azusa greeted, refusing to let these types of habits slide. Even if it meant shooting them down basically everyday.</p><p>“Aww, but aren’t you excited to be here? I’m always excited to see you!” Yui chirped back, completely unfazed by Azusa’s cold defenses. “Every day, if I get here before you, I watch the door eagerly and tell myself ‘Any minute now, our amazing friend Azu-nyan is going to step right through that door!’ And then, wooah...my prediction comes true!”</p><p>“That’s not a very impressive prediction…”</p><p>Azusa shuffled into the room, completely side-stepping Yui’s blatant offer for a hug, and set her bags down on the couch. She sat her guitar case down gently, letting it sit up and lean back as if it were a real person.</p><p>Although she was focused on putting her things down with care, she noticed Mugi out of the corner of her eye, waving with a friendly smile from her usual seat at the table.</p><p>“It’s great to see you, Azusa,” Mugi greeted with a warm tone. “How were your classes today?”</p><p>“Oh, they were alright. How was your day?”</p><p>“Hmm...it was lovely! The weather was nice on the walk to school. And now it’s even better, because you’re here!”</p><p>Somehow, the flattering pleasantries were a lot more touching coming from Mugi’s mouth than from Yui’s. Azusa couldn’t tell if the comment made her blush or not.</p><p>Azusa began unzipping her case and taking out her guitar. It’s inevitable that the club will become completely derailed because the other members will want to start off with tea, snacks, and chatting. But maybe, just maybe, if she started things off on the right foot, she could lead by example and keep the focus on band practice.</p><p>She tried to keep a determined poker face on, putting her guitar on and fiddling with the pegs. She made a big show of plucking the strings, checking the tuning, all in hopes that her seriousness would be contagious.</p><p>It failed.</p><p>“Hey, now that we’re all here…” Yui declared, sounding like she’s rounding up a kindergarten class, “...we should sit down and have some tea!”</p><p>Azusa sighed, not even bothering to stifle it. Of course.</p><p>She paused. There was an odd second of silence in the room, made more noticeable by the phrase “we’re all here.”</p><p>“Um, where are Mio-senpai and Ritsu-senpai?”</p><p>Azusa looked around the clubroom, finally taking her surroundings in. Mio and Ritsu were nowhere to be found. Just Yui standing by the door and Mugi sitting in her spot.</p><p>“Oh, I don’t think they’ll be joining us,” Mugi explained, pulling out her cellphone. “Mio sent me a text a few minutes ago. Ritsu’s parents needed her to pick some things up from the store after school. They didn’t trust her to do it all by herself, it seems, so they requested that Mio go to the store to accompany her.”</p><p>Apparently, Ritsu wasn’t to be trusted with important family errands.</p><p>“Well, I guess that’s the advantage of your kid having a lifelong friend...you can ask her for favors…” Azusa observed, wondering what it would be like to have a friend she’s known that many years.</p><p>“And so…! Because of that…! That means...we’re all here!” Yui continued her energetic declarations, bouncing around the room. “So we might as well get started with tea and snacks!”</p><p>“You just want tea and snacks no matter what attendance looks like,” Azusa muttered under her breath.</p><p>Yui twirled across the room, crashing recklessly into her seat. “Let the tea commence, Mugi-chan! Oh, I’m so excited!”</p><p>If there was supposed to be a reason Yui was excited, it certainly wasn’t evident. It was just a normal day, like any other day.</p><p>She didn’t follow up with any explanation for her words.</p><p>Mugi stood up, preparing tea across the room. Azusa could never quite understand if she did this out of obedience, habit, or actual interest in making tea.</p><p>“Before we get too distracted,” Azusa blurted out, trying desperately to avoid sinking into the warm waters of laziness, “we can still practice just the three of us, you know!”</p><p>Yui, head in her arms like she was considering a nap, looked up at Azusa. Judging from the look on her face, this wasn’t a possibility she had considered for even a second.</p><p>“Aww, come on…” she whined, like a small dog. “We can’t be a band without drums. Or a bass. We can practice tomorrow, when we’re reunited and more powerful than ever!”</p><p>“But the three of us know our parts...we don’t NEED drums and bass to keep tempo for us…”</p><p>Resistance was futile, at least for the time being.</p><p>“While I would be really excited to play with just the two of you, since we’ve never tried that before,” Mugi spoke up, setting the table with cups of piping hot tea, “I do have a cheesecake here in this box...and it might taste best if we enjoy it while it’s still fresh!”</p><p>Yui kicked her legs up and down like a little kid, making a racket for the poor club who must meet in the room below. “Aha~~! Mugi to the rescue! See, Azu-nyan? We HAVE to eat the cheesecake! It would be super irresponsible not to!”</p><p>Azusa glared at her. She had no words, but figured a look would be enough.</p><p>“Ahh...scary…!!” Yui squeaked. “Come on, I promise we’ll start practice as soon as we’re done!”</p><p>“Fine,” Azusa sighed. As Mugi began slicing cheesecake and sliding the girls their respective pieces, she couldn’t deny that she could really go for some cheesecake right about now.</p><p>“Y’know, I’m not sure we can even call this the ‘Light Music Club’ anymore...maybe that name is false advertising,” Azusa remarks, not letting the slacker atmosphere completely slide. “Don’t you ever want to play more? What about you, Mugi-senpai?”</p><p>“Hm?” Mugi wasn’t expecting to be pulled into a conversation like this. But without Mio or Ritsu to keep the ball in the air or change the subject, it may have been inevitable that she’d be dragged into a spat between these two.</p><p>“Well, I certainly love playing keyboard. It’s really fun, especially when I get to weave in and out of the rest of your parts! It’s much more fun than just playing alone.”</p><p>Azusa noticeably bounced up, almost jumping out of her seat. Luckily, she quickly regained her composure mid-sentence, “See? I agree, playing as a band is really fun! So why don’t you want to get up and play instead of fooling around?”</p><p>“But on the other hand,” Mugi considered, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully, “it’s so nice to be able to enjoy tea and these delicious desserts together with friends. It wouldn’t feel right at all to just gorge on these things all by myself...it’s sharing them with all of you that makes it all worthwhile!”</p><p>Yui flicked up two big thumbs-up, her eyes glowing.</p><p>“Aww, come on,” Azusa groaned, taking the rare opportunity to try to appeal to Mugi directly. “Your playing is really lovely, and I know you must have practiced a lot of piano as a kid. Wouldn’t you prefer playing more?”</p><p>Mugi paused. She seemed to give it genuine thought, instead of just deflecting Azusa’s complaints away.</p><p>“I think that…” she began, considering each word with care, “I really enjoy playing the piano a lot. It’s a load of fun, especially now that we can play songs we wrote ourselves. But much more than that, I enjoy being a part of the Light Music Club. And for me…”</p><p>Another pause.</p><p>“...the experience of the Light Music Club isn’t just music. Music is a part of it, of course...but for me the real experience is being able to spend time with you all. I really cherish every minute of it, even if we’re just enjoying tea and snacks I’ve brought from home. It feels silly to say aloud but it almost feels...essential. It feels vital to making the day feel complete. And just as vital to our process of writing the music too, if that makes sense.”</p><p>Azusa nearly clicked her tongue, but she couldn’t stay mad at Mugi’s very sincere response.</p><p>Was eating snacks and drinking tea a “vital” part of their musical process? They certainly did write a lot of songs that match that theme. They were After-School Tea Time, after all.</p><p>“Well...it may be true that we draw a lot of inspiration from the things we eat and drink,” Azusa replied, unable to escape the feeling that she was losing ground. “But...couldn’t we express that inspiration more if we wrote more and performed more? There are still so many things we could do with our music! If only we spent more time on it. We could get even more comfortable with our instruments, we could push ourselves further, we could write albums and albums of songs that could explore all sorts of different-”</p><p>Azusa stopped herself, the words evaporating out of her mouth like a brief wisp of steam coming from her cup of tea.</p><p>It felt pointless to continue with this line of reasoning, and she began to feel hot with embarrassment for getting so passionate about it. She glanced at Yui, and was almost relieved to see that she wasn’t paying any attention at all. Her entire essence was absorbed in the experience of enjoying cheesecake.</p><p>Azusa turned to Mugi. She was smiling gently towards her, as she always did.</p><p>“Ahh. Well, that is true, I suppose,” Mugi answered, despite Azusa not finishing her point. Something about the response felt empty, like it was only a formality. </p><p>Azusa looked into Mugi’s eyes. There was this expression on her face that she couldn’t quite describe. It was this brief second where Mugi seemed beyond her years, with a graceful, unspoken wisdom. It was gentle and inviting, like Mugi always was, but for a fleeting moment it made Azusa feel small. She felt a widening gap between them, like a vast space of experience that she couldn’t possibly understand. Azusa was only one year younger than her bandmates, but in this one wordless pause, she felt like Mugi was trying to tell her something she couldn’t yet understand. Like she was speaking in a different language, with nothing Azusa could grab hold of.</p><p>Azusa averted her gaze, feeling embarrassed. Why did she feel this way? All that Mugi had said was “Well, that is true, I suppose.” A simple response. She may have meant nothing by it. And yet there seemed to be so much to it, between the lines. Plus, that calm confidence afterward...</p><p>Azusa wondered if she was just being a baby. Would she understand what Mugi was saying next year, when she herself was a senior like they are now?</p><p>Although it felt like a lifetime of contemplation, the interaction was only a brief couple of seconds. Azusa’s thoughts were interrupted by her other bandmate, almost on cue.</p><p>“Maybe you’re right, Azu-nyan. We could change the name to ‘The Cake and Tea Club’ and then we wouldn’t have to worry about false advertising any more! Our mission statement could be: ‘Experiencing the flavors of sweet treats and yummy teas from all around the world!’ I would practice super hard at that,” Yui proposed with confidence.</p><p>“Each day we could try a new treat! And share it with all the club members! Ooo, I bet we could get a bunch of new members with a name like that! And we could, umm...give speeches about our favorite treats! I could totally write a speech or an essay about that kind of thing...maybe it’ll help my grades, too!”</p><p>“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Azusa muttered. “Plus there’s no way the school would approve a club like that…”</p><p>Yui whined that Azusa was “no fun,” followed by another brief silence. The only sound was the quiet clattering of forks against plates as all three finished up their cheesecake.</p><p>Suddenly, Yui pointed dramatically past Azusa’s head, bouncing in her seat.</p><p>“Woahh! Aha, aha, look!” she exclaimed.</p><p>Azusa hesitated, worried it was some kind of prank.</p><p>“Awww, you missed it...Ton-chan was totally waving at us. I think he was saying, ‘Mio and Ritsu may not be here, but you all forgot about me! I’m the sixth member of the club, after all! And hey, I don’t even get a cup of tea?!’”</p><p>“Please don’t think about pouring any tea into Ton-chan’s tank,” Azusa shot her down, even though Yui would never do something like that.</p><p>----------</p><p>Mugi began to clean up the silverware.</p><p>“What did you think of your tea?” she asked Azusa as she passed by her chair, cleaning up for her.</p><p>“O-oh...it was really great, thank you so much.”</p><p>“That’s great, I’m glad to hear it!” Mugi replied cheerily. After cleaning up, she walked over to the couch and opened her school bag. She took out a pen and a notepad, flipping to a clean page. After a second of thought, she began writing something down.</p><p>It was a bit unclear what she was doing. It probably wasn’t homework, right?</p><p>“What are you writing down, Mugi-senpai? Did you remember something suddenly?” Azusa asked, trying to change the mood of the room. This was her first time hanging out with just Yui and Mugi for an extended period of time, and she was beginning to feel guilty about badgering them about band practice.</p><p>“Hmm...I had just thought of something, so I wanted to get it down on paper,” Mugi explained, not lifting her eyes from the page. She seemed lost in thought, occasionally scribbling some more words down.</p><p>Azusa and Yui both stood up, peering over towards Mugi. It felt rude to read over her shoulder, so they kept their distance.</p><p>Mugi continued to jot her thoughts down in relative silence. The room was quiet with only three people in it. Yui broke the silence by making small talk.</p><p>“Hey Azu-nyan, I’ve always wondered...what’s it like being in the same class as my sister?”</p><p>Azusa was caught off guard. "What? Classes with Ui…? They’re good, I guess. Why do you ask?”</p><p>“Oh, I was just wondering. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be classmates with Ui. I’m kinda jealous of you! I wish I could have class with her…”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Hmm...because I miss her!” Yui answered. “It would be really fun to see her in class, eat lunch with her...plus she could help me with homework, heheh...”</p><p>Apparently, Yui liked her sister so much that she wouldn’t mind hanging out with her all day. Don’t they see each other enough at home? Azusa almost gets the vibe that Ui basically acts as a mom for Yui. What more could she want?</p><p>Yui smiled warmly, clearly lost in a daydream about being twins with her sister and sharing a school schedule.</p><p>“You shouldn’t want to be in the same class as your sister just to get someone to help you do your homework…” Azusa said with an almost disappointed tone. “But, well...yes, I do enjoy having classes with Ui! S-she’s a good friend, so I’m glad we get to hang out.”</p><p>Yui’s face lit up even more, and she jumped towards Azusa, smushing her into a hug.</p><p>“Awwww, you called Ui your good friend! That’s so cute! I can’t wait to tell her you said that when I get home!”</p><p>“H-hey, quit embarrassing me!”</p><p>Mugi giggled from the couch, putting her pen away.</p><p>“Hey Mugi-chan,” Yui turned her attention. “What have you been writing about anyway?”</p><p>Mugi couldn’t hide her grin. “Oh, I had an idea for a song!”</p><p>Both Azusa’s and Yui’s eyes lit up. “Really?”</p><p>“Mmhmm. Something about our time together today gave me some ideas for a new song...so I wanted to write down all the different things I had on my mind. I know I may not be the best at writing lyrics, but...I think I was able to come up with something I’m happy with.”</p><p>Yui jumped onto the couch, sliding over towards her.</p><p>“Well, let’s hear it, let’s hear it!” she clamored excitedly.</p><p>“Mm, not yet,” Mugi said, putting her notepad away. “I’m not quite done with it yet. But as soon as I finish, I’ll share it with you two.”</p><p>Azusa blinked. “Just us two?”</p><p>“Well yeah, it’s a song about us!” Mugi replied. Her voice almost dropped to an excited whisper, as if she were keeping a juicy secret that could get them all in trouble. “The three of us together in this club room...and thus, it’s written to be played by just the three of us! Oh, it’ll be so much fun! Next time Mio and Ritsu aren’t here, we can practice it together!”</p><p>Azusa couldn’t help but smile. It was always exciting when someone in the band came up with a new song, but the idea of a song kept secret just between the three of them...something about it was extra exciting.</p><p>“Wow, that’s really kind of cool...I can’t wait to see what you come up with, Mugi-senpai!”</p><p>“Yeah, Mugi-chan! I can’t believe we’ll have our own secret band. A mini band-within-a-band! After-School Tea Time...Secret Agents!”</p><p>All three of them chuckled, and relaxed on the couch for a few minutes. After a bit of meandering small talk, Yui and Mugi looked at each other. With a knowing nod, they stood up.</p><p>“Alright, time for practice!” Yui declared suddenly.</p><p>“Wait, really?” Azusa was caught off guard. This wasn’t like them. She had practically given up on the idea that they’d play anything today.</p><p>“Of course!" Mugi added. "We’re the Light Music Club, after all! We’ve had our tea, and plenty of time to get ready. Now we can go over some of the songs we might play for the school festival!”</p><p>Azusa stood up and scrambled to get her guitar. At first she was going to question it further, wondering if it was some sort of trick or joke. But she decided to go with the flow. If Yui and Mugi wanted to practice with her, she didn’t want to lose the opportunity.</p><p>“Alright then! We may not have any drums, but...I can help count us in, i-if you want! Maybe that will help us stay together!” Azusa offered.</p><p>“That would be perfect, Azu-nyan! Lead the way!”</p><p>Being the newest, and youngest, member of the club, Azusa still didn’t have much experience spending time with any of her bandmates without the whole gang together. But maybe it wasn’t so bad, spending time with Yui and Mugi. As they began their practice, their sound was definitely missing something important, but it still felt bright and fun. Just the three of them together.</p><p>When they finished their first song, all of the fidgeting energy that had been building up within Azusa all day was completely gone.</p><p>And the space between her and her upperclassmen didn’t seem so vast after all.</p>
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